the unlikely athlete

i always felt somewhat awkward in my body as a child.... never good at sports, afraid of getting hit by the ball, afraid to put my head under the water when learning to swim, falling over and losing my (very thick... and very necessary) glasses in the snowbank while skiing, cracking my skull due to stepping on the ball while playing soccer...

so i came to believe that i was not athletic.

i still liked to be active, but never considered myself good at it. i rode my bike because i liked it. i rode over 100 kms through the Rocky Mountains in one day, camped at the end, and rode back the following morning. but never considered myself a cyclist.

i took up inline skating to keep a friend company when she wanted to lose weight, and then wound up training for and competing in a 24 hour inline skating relay... regularly skating 60 or more kms on a Saturday morning after skating for 3 or 4 hours through the (cobbled) streets of Paris the night before.

i walked 56 kms in the middle of the night in January (twice!), first to raise money for an HIV/AIDS organization, and then because i'd enjoyed it the first time.

i trained for and ran a marathon a few months ago. and signed up to do another one in October.


...

i think i've finally admitted to myself that i am something of an athlete. perhaps not a successful one in the sense of making it my profession or capturing media attention and adoring fans.... but successful in that i achieve what i set out to do, i enjoy each event and look forward to the rest.

i will never be the athlete that crosses the finish line with the ribbon breaking across my chest, muscles bared and rippling... i will never be that lean, or that driven, or that focused.

but i will cross that finish line, with a smile on my face, because i believe in myself and my own strength enough to put my toe to the starting line.

What's your story? Want to get fit, make friends and save lives? Sign up for Team in Training and complete a marathon, triathlon, hike or century ride while raising money to cure blood cancers. Fall season kickoff is June 6th. Details and locations for info sessions are at the TNT website.

GO TEAM!

running dreams

i was going through some old e-mails this morning, looking for a particular one because i was sure i had some info i need posted in an e-mail somewhere...

and i came across this one from October 17, 2007. reprinted here for your reading amusement:

i dreamed we were getting ready to run a half marathon together... Mummer, Liz, Jill and i... and Cath and Molly were staying in the bleachers with all our bags of stuff to take pictures of us when we crossed the finish lines. for some reason, the race started in the rodeo grounds, and the toilets were disgusting... Jill was showing us the enormous blisters she had on the bottoms of her feet (they were huge!) before the race started, and Liz wasn't sure she really wanted to do it... so they took off while Mummer and i were in line to get the tank tops with our race numbers on, they were green... i was #917... i don't remember what you were, Mummer... and i was wearing a green skirt and black wooly tights... not appropriate for running so i stripped off the tights... and we were trying to put our shoes on when the starter gun went off... so we were late starting... and you were running really really fast. i kept calling you to slow down because i was worried you'd burn out, and then we turned the corner where we exited the stadium (where the race started) and suddenly we were the only ones running in tank tops and short skirts in the heavy snow...

then Francisco's alarm went off, and i was bummed because i didn't get to see if we managed to finish the race.

the end.

Clearly I was destined to run marathons... although there's no fear of running in snow any time soon!

first donation is in... woo hoo!

just a quick note, before i dash off to work, to say thank you to my friend Jo for being the first to make a donation on my new MCM website. you rock! and, good luck on your own "Relay For Life" fundraising.

xoxox

New Website!

hello my lovely readers...

just a quick note to say that my new fundraising website is up and running, and if you know of anyone looking for charities to support, i'm accepting donations now. not that i'm a charity, per se... but it's not for me. it's for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

feel free to click on my "donate now" link in the upper right hand corner if you would, in fact, like to donate now...

and feel free to pass the link on to your friends and family.

as always, i am eternally grateful for your support.

all this work is getting in the way of me running

now that i have this new job and i work outside 9 hours a day, i find i don't have as much energy and motivation for running in the evenings.

sigh...

i still do my best to get out and run on my days off, but i feel less and less fit as the weeks go by. all my training is melting away!

i keep telling myself that once i get used to doing physical work again, after 7 months on the couch, that i will miraculously find the energy once again. i hope i'm right...